Paul Stanley Says His Eventual Replacement in Kiss Won’t Be a ‘Clone’

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley believes the person who eventually replaces him in the band won’t be a “clone” of the original Starchild. He’s said on several occasions -- most recently earlier this month -- that the iconic group should continue into the future without any original members left, and last week's news that Kiss had filed to trademark the phrase “The End of the Road” sparked speculation that the changes could happen sooner rather than later.

Responding to the comment that some people couldn’t imagine Kiss without him and Gene Simmons, Stanley, who valiantly fought an evil robot clone version of himself in the 1978 made-for-TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, told 95.5 KLOS (video above), “I can! I tell ya, Eric [Singer]’s been in the band 20-something years, off and on, and Tommy [Thayer]’s been in 15 years. So the people who initially thought, ‘Well, it’s got to be the original four guys,’ they’re already 50 percent wrong. I think that Kiss is a concept, it’s an ideal, it’s a way of performing… and that goes far beyond me.”

He asserted that he was a “big fan” of his own work with Kiss but continued, “It doesn’t mean there’s not somebody else out there who can bring something to the band. Not a clone, not somebody copying me. But I was influenced by a lot of people, so there’s people out there who are influenced by me.”

Asked again whether the band would go on without any original members, Stanley replied, “I believe it will, I believe it can, and I believe it should. Kiss DNA is in every live show from rap to rock to call it what it is; special effects, a way of entertaining an audience. That’s what we’ve always been about – being the band we never saw. Once audiences started seeing what was possible, they wouldn’t accept less from a lot of other bands. So I believe that nobody does it better than us, and nobody will continue to do it better than us.”

The band’s current touring schedule consists solely of a week-long tour of Spain and Portugal in July.